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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30082506">trapped and trashing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthewayfromatoz/pseuds/allthewayfromatoz'>allthewayfromatoz</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(???), Autistic Meltdown, Autistic Spencer Reid, Flashbacks, Hurt No Comfort, Imagery, Sensory Overload, Spencer Reid Whump, Whump, can be interpreted as ptsd or cptsd, idk just let project in peace, implied/referenced past trauma, it's kinda ambiguous, like seriously he just has a meltdown that's it, no beta we die like spencer's mental stability in this fic, no editing as well apparently</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:22:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>770</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30082506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthewayfromatoz/pseuds/allthewayfromatoz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped. Trapped and chained, stuck and wound up with no way out. He couldn’t escape, he couldn’t save himself-</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>trapped and trashing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i'm a tortured serial killer, comfort characters are my victims, word documents are my dungeon.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Spencer ran his fingers through his hair, sneering when he felt a knot snag his fingers. He pulled. He pulled again. It didn’t budge. He pulled again, not bothering to wince when the whole thing just tore from out his scalp.</p><p>The tender spot was different. Different from all the other spots on his head and he hated it because all the spots had to be the same, the exact same because that’s how he makes it right and now they’re not the same anymore so he needs to fix it and at that moment he can’t explain it but the vaguely horrible tingling feeling is like a million needles stabbing at his scalp and breaking through into his brain and he needs to make it stop and-</p><p>“-eid! Reid! Spencer! Spencer!”</p><p>He felt something grab at his hand. The feel of skin on skin, rough and rugged, felt offensive on his skin. He had to get away from it-</p><p>“Spencer, stop thrashing!”</p><p>Spencer did not stop thrashing. He had to get away and he had to fix it and it was so bright in here, so incredibly bright and loud he felt his brain might just explode from all the things filling it, threatening to spill over and he had to get away before it called his bluff-</p><p>Trapped. Trapped and chained, stuck and wound up with no way out. He couldn’t escape, he couldn’t save himself-</p><p>“Spencer! I need you to calm down!”</p><p>Spencer threw his body, anything to get out, to get <em>away</em>.</p><p>He squeezed his eyes shut, now with only his nose and his ears and his skin he was floating, his mind was floating, and he felt something else, the stench of alcohol mingled with cologne, prickly hair that stabbed at his skin felt the same as fibers and threads of a sweater, but the arms wrapped around him were the exact same-</p><p>Arms. The things around him were arms.</p><p>He was floating yet as confined as possible, and the distinction between nightmares and fears and memories and present were blurring, whisps, red, green, yellow, blue, purple, brown, black, different colors bleeding into each other and mixing together, swirling and muddling into a cyclone of confusion…</p><p>
  <em>“Shut it! Boy- “</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Spencer shrieked. It was so incredibly…offensive. Oppressive. The assault on his mind, squishing and pressing down at all angles, he thought it might just melt when—if—the force stopped. Like oobleck.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And now-now this thing had come along and when his brain was already feeling so confined, so pressed, and trapped him, trapped him in it all, adding to the attack on his mind.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It pulsed, starting at the base of his neck, following up and up into his crown, wrapping a rope around and pulling, pulling, pulling, and it dragged itself down across his face, scratching at his skin, the fibers stabbing him and pressing into his features. His skin dragged. He wanted it to melt off.</em>
</p><p>“Spencer! Spencer!”</p><p>He shook again, trying to break from the arms wrapped around him. His bones felt itchy. He grasped at his cardigan sleeve, squeezing his arm and moving the flesh back and forth, kneading it like dough between his fingers, trying to get the feeling to stop.</p><p>He trashed. His mind provided him an image of a tank, the water sloshing around, reaching up, grasping at nothing, trying to escape, nothing but more air slipping through its fingers.</p><p>The water stilled.</p><p>He gave up.</p><p>He turned into molten in the arms, all weight now on the arms, the tears leaving his eyes trailing on his cheeks. Even his hair flopped, curtaining his face.</p><p>His grip loosened. He cried.</p><p>He cried.</p><p>At some point, the arms were gone. He kept crying.</p><p>He was practically liquid, spreading across the furniture he had been placed on. He curled up; his arms wrapped around his knees. He rocked. He rocked more.</p><p>He brought his fingers up to hair and ran them through but the feeling of the stands tugging at his skin was much too much so he yanked away and shook it off, wiping it off on the fabric of his pants but the force of it on his wrist, the sudden shake of it was also way too much so he settled for curling his hand up to protect it from everything else and pounding it into his head.</p><p>And there it was again, the prickling, tingly feeling of skin on skin, someone grabbing at his wrist and keeping it there.</p><p>And he cried.</p><p>And he cried.</p><p>And he cried.</p><p>And the feeling stayed.</p><p>The feeling loomed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>look dude, don't ask me what this is. i'm autistic, i'm sad, there's an autistic coded sad twink /right there/, what am i supposed to do, not project??</p></blockquote></div></div>
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